8:30am-9:15am: housing

8:30am-9:15am: Dr Rita Li, Director of Sustainable Real Estate Research Center; Associate Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, HK Shue Yan University 

8:30am-9:00am: Ryan Ip (in photo), Head of Land & Housing Research, Our Hong Kong Foundation
8:45am-9:00am: Ho Lok-sang, Senior Research Fellow, Pan Sutong Economic Policy Research Institute, Lingnan University 
9:15am-9:30am: space tourism
9:15am-9:30am: Quentin Parker, Professor, Department of Physics and Director of Space Research Laboratory, HKU 



On Wednesday’s Backchat, housing; and space tourism.
The head of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Xia Baolong said that he hopes housing issues in the city would see great improvements, and it would bid farewell to caged homes and subdivided houses by 2049.
Meanwhile, Carrie Lam said the government has found enough land to meet its three-year target of building 15,000 transitional homes, as she vowed to use the remainder of her term to tackle the housing issue, including strengthening oversight from the highest level of government to avoid an internal “fragmentation of responsibilities”.
What does this mean? What actually are priority problems in housing? The CE told lawmakers “what we need to fundamentally solve the housing problem in Hong Kong is not any expedient measure, but the determination to maintain the land supply, is that what Beijing wants? Should property prices be high or low? More public housing or less? Are developers devils or angels? What should be long term goals for Hong Kong?
From 9:15am-9:30am, we’re discussing space tourism. After Richard Branson finished his trip to the edge of space, Jeff Bezos is also heading for the stars, with the oldest and the youngest ever astronauts. Is it a new frontier, or escapism for bored billionaires?